Always Home
by Raakiid
Summary: It's hard to become a Death Eater. Harder still when all that is sane seems to be collapsing around you.
1. Always Home

With no small amount of trepidation, Draco examined his surroundings

Always Home

With no small amount of trepidation, Draco examined his surroundings. Masked, dark-robed men were all around him. One of them – he wasn't sure which one – was his father. But Lucius Malfoy didn't intend to show himself. He would offer no comfort to his son.

While the Death Eaters stood, talking in low, hissing whispers, moving slyly through the crowd, Draco was sitting. He and three others, all of them older than himself, occupied a low-slung metal bench with no padding or comfort. Abstractedly, he thought about the couch in the Slytherin common room, with its green velvet and soft cushions, and the silver serpents snaking along the armrests. Slytherins deserved the best that could be offered. It was an insult to make him take such a plain bench, which any _Muggle_ might _sleep_ on.

Without warning, the whispers stopped. This was a prelude to the ancient moan of the heavy door, as it opened slowly.

Draco could see the pale, thin hand on the door handle. The colorless nails. The paler knuckles. And he could feel the strength that this frail-looking hand possessed . . . a strength that was growing.

His silver eyes went higher, stretching up the black-shrouded arm, and delving into the fathoms of the black cowl. He hoped to seem calm and appraising, and a trifle mocking. That appearance was what everyone at Hogwarts recognized, and what they might one day fear. Then Draco learned why no one looked appraisingly at Voldemort.

The eyes. Blazing red, like a fire of controlled anger, with slit-pupils. Those eyes looked into Draco's silver eyes, and into the mind behind them. Into the depths of his fear, into all the cowardice and false pride that Draco had ever felt. A cold smile formed under the flat nose with its slits for nostrils. An appraising smile.

"Your son is afraid of me, Lucius." The voice was like winter, cruel and thin and cold, like the smile that was not mirth but intimidation.

Draco's father said nothing. Among the masked Death Eaters, he was only another anonymous figure.

A small man, balding and greasy, hurried out from behind Lord Voldemort. "Now we will brand the new ones," he said nervously, darting a glance at his Lord. He looked as though he wanted to get this over with.

"Yes." Hissed, like a snake would hiss.

"Felicia Arcanus," said the small man. A haughty woman at the far end of the bench stood. She held up her left arm, baring it to the elbow. Her skin was pale against the black of her robes.

Lord Voldemort raised his wand. In a strange, sinuous language, an incantation was murmured. On the pale flesh of the woman's arm, a black mark suddenly burned and smoked. Gasping, making shrill noises, cradling her hand, Felicia sat again.

"Devon Curspicus." The short, elderly man stood, flashed a yellow-toothed smile, and was branded. He made no sound, unlike Felicia. He simply sat.

"Ju Ling."

"That's Ju _Ming_," corrected the Asian man. He smiled good-naturedly and bared his arm. Other than a sharp intake of breath, he didn't react to the branding.

"Draco Malfoy."

Draco stood. He knew that it would hurt to be branded with the mark of Lord Voldemort. If his father's words hadn't been enough, Felicia and Ju Ming's reactions would have told him. He also knew that his family's pride asked for him to take the pain in stride.

Beneath the hood, pale lips moved. A thin arm raised, lifting a long wand. Then the pain began.

It was immediately more painful than anything else that Draco had ever felt. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, but he could feel stinging tears forcing their way out. Tentatively, he touched the mark with his right hand, then pulled his hand away. It burned his fingers as it burned his forearm, and the pain just seemed to go on forever . . ..

Draco sat, succumbing to the urge to whimper like a pathetic puppy. _Is this what Harry Potter feels when his scar hurts?_ _Is this what Voldemort does to people_?

One of the black-robed Death Eaters moved to stand behind Draco, as soon as Lord Voldemort turned his attention elsewhere.

"Don't wail like a child, Draco," berated Lucius.

Like a child, Draco whispered, "Can we go home now?"

The mask seemed to grin. "Among your fellows, you are _always_ home."


	2. Alone In Your Mind

Always Home: Alone In Your Mind

Always Home: Alone In Your Mind

Both Malfoys were silent as they sat across from each other. House elves carried food in, carried picked-at courses out, bustling with the quiet efficiency that such creatures possessed. Not a word was spoken.

And then there was a choking, gasping sound, as Lucius Malfoy grabbed a retreating house elf by the back of his soiled pillowcase. "You. Tippy."

The elf let out a squeak, turning slowly to face his captor. "Yes, Master?"

"You want to escape us, Tippy." This statement was made in a simple, matter-of-fact tone that sent a shudder of fear through the hapless creature. "You know that even being _paid_ to work would be better than serving the Malfoys, do you not?"

"N-no, Master, Tippy is only wanting to serve you!" the elf shrieked, his huge, blue eyes growing rounder with fear.

"But you remember why you work for us, do you not?" The knell of that last word, almost a tolling sound, drove the elf to his knees. "You remember that we _saved_ you from the Dark Lord, _do you not_?!"

"Yes, yes sir, Master, Tippy remembers, Master!" Tippy's sobs echoed through the dining hall. Another house elf—Minby—took away Draco's plate.

"And you remember what it was like under _Voldemort_?" The four elves in the room flinched in unison at the name. Tears were running down Tippy's face now, but his voice was more composed than it had ever been.

"Yes, sir. Tippy remembers." A resigned sentence. "Tippy _remembers_."

Lucius put the elf down. "Good. Don't think of escape. Whatever befalls you in here, it will always, always be worse out there." He adjusted the rumpled pillowcase that his servant wore, offered a morsel of meat from his plate. "Here, Tippy. Why don't you take the night off?" Lucius' smile was kind, fatherly. Tippy looked up at him in awe, bowed quickly, and edged out of the room.

Draco took a sip of water from his goblet. "Father, why did you do that?" he asked.

Lucius flashed the same smile on Draco that he had turned toward Tippy. "I thought he deserved some recompense for being shaken up like that."

Draco stared for a moment, and then engrossed himself in his food. Better not to ask. Better not to wonder.

Mother didn't worry about family pride, or killing, or Muggles. Mother was a woman who abhorred other people. She couldn't stand crowds or social events. Sometimes, Narcissa Malfoy locked herself in her room to keep her family away. Even house elves could seem too close, too personal.

Draco often wondered if his mother had ever stayed long in Saint Mungo's.

But Narcissa never asked questions. She hid from other people, spending most to all of her time reading. The library had been exhausted in a matter of weeks. And still Narcissa read and reread her precious books.

When Narcissa wasn't reading, she daydreamed. Draco had learned not to touch his mother when she got that preoccupied look on her face; she had once screamed and spun on him like a beast.

Narcissa heard her son walk up to his room, though his footfalls might have been silent. She called a greeting and good night from behind the locked library door. Draco replied in kind, and then went to his room.

Draco ran his fingers over the brand in his forearm. Even now, it still stung. _Burned_. The ember ache was duller, now, but the pain was very much alive. Perhaps it would never die. Did his father's brand still throb, even after so many years with it? Was it something that had to be lived with? Would it ever die away?

As midnight hunched over the dark, brooding moors, a pale boy woke with a jolt. It _burned_! Oh, God, it burned! He almost screamed, but if he started screaming now he'd never be able to stop…Draco remembered what the pain in his arm signified. He was being summoned to his new lord. But he didn't have an Apparation license! How would he reach Voldemort without splinching himself?

Would he prefer to be splinched, or to feel this pain until it killed him?

The darkness enfolded him, and a screech echoed across the moor.


End file.
